Aaron Ewer

My mother-in-law has decided to start traveling and I’m really glad that she is finally start to get out of the house. It’s been 2 years since her husband passed away and she’s had a hard time getting used to the idea that she is, in effect, single again. Thankfully, my father-in-law made generous financial arrangements for her, so she can enjoy her life in her golden years.

She wants to go to California and I was telling her about some of the sights to see in the Los Angeles area. She is going to spend two weeks on the West Coast and that will give her plenty of time to do fun things. For example, there’s amusement parks like Disneryland and Knotts Berry Farm. I let her know there are ways to save money on her trip if she plans ahead, such as discounts on Knotts berry farm tickets.

I let her know that she can do a lot of research on sites like the one by Trusted Tours & Attractions, and to read their online travel guides, which can give her lots of ideas and help her plan a realistic itinerary and trip budget. She can also sign up for their email newsletter for more travel tips and ideas.

The last time I was in the Los Angeles area, I had trouble getting home. At the time it was a little stressful but now I can laugh about it. I was flying on a ticket that required a stopover in Detroit before continuing the return flight back to Washington. I had spent a ton of money on the trip to California and was flat broke but figured I wouldn’t need any money because the ticket was paid for and I was heading home.

I was anxious to get home, with a wedding to attend the next day, and planned to sleep on the 5 hour flight so I had nothing with me except what was in my pockets. After we all boarded the plane, we sat on the runway for an awfully long time and eventually the flight attendant announced that we were being delayed due to a mechanical issue and that they were in the process of checking it out. Then they cut off the power to the passenger cabin and we all sat on the plane, on the runway with no lights, no air conditioning and no air circulation for 2 hours. We were all trying to be good sports, but OMG - it was horrible. Especially without any air. I was about to lead a revolt to get off the plane when they finally put the power back on and we had air again. After a 3 hour delay we suddenly lurched forward and the seat belt sign came on and off we went.

The worst of it was not having the air conditioning, but besides that by the time we got to Detroit to make the connecting flight, we were so late that the connecting flight had already left. As a matter of fact, ALL scheduled flights had already left Detroit and there were no more planes leaving Detroit that night to go ANYWHERE. So here we were, a planeload of people wanting to go home and no way to get there! Plus i was stone cold broke and had no money for dinner or even a vending machine snack. The airline made arrangements to send us to local hotels for the night and we were able to catch a red-eye flight in the morning. But that was a rough return trip and I learned a couple travel lessons from that experience:

• Never spend all your money at your destination and have no money in your pocket on the return flight. You might need to buy dinner or a toothbrush if you end up spending the night someplace unplanned.
• Never book the last flight out. You might miss that flight or it might be canceled and you’ll be stuck someplace overnight. Always have one or two alternative flights following your scheduled flight as a safety net.
• Always have a book or laptop fully charged to keep yourself occupied in case you have to sit and wait for a couple hours.

Last year’s vacation to New Jersey is pulling at my memories this week. It’s been a year ago this month that we were enjoying our family beach vacation at the Jersey shore right before school started. We had a glorious week at the beach and all of us came home tan and happy, with our internal batteries fully recharged.

There’s a lot to be said for quality family time away from home. My own parents felt strongly about taking the entire family on road trips up and down the East Coast as we were growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. we went everywhere from Orlando and Disneyworld, to Virginia Beach, to Gettysburg. But our favorite spot was always the beaches in New Jersey and the Wildwood attractions.

If you’ve never been to the Jersey shore, you are missing out on great family entertainment. Morey’s Piers has all the amusement rides, concessions stands, concerts and water parks that any kid or any age could want. Morey’s Piers offers different weekly specials and has three different amusement parks:

• Surfside Pier
• Mariner’s Landing
• Adventure Pier

Each different park has different rides, including kiddie rides, thrill rides, and a variety of boardwalk fun and food.

The Wildwood area has a variety of lodging options, from cheap hotel rooms to beachfront efficiencies and condos. We used the internet to set up our whole trip, found the perfect hotel for our family’s budget, and it was a great time for all of us.

Some of the players take advantage of lobby chat to goof around and use keyboard characters to create little pictures, such as Kilroy faces and secret messages.

The easy one I used to make was about coffee. If at a table with good friends, late at night of first thing in the morning, I would “offer” to bring everyone a cup of coffee and deliver/illustrate it by typing this into the chat line:

(_D

School will be starting up again here. Some neighboring counties are actually starting back this week, and by the end of next week I believe all the kids in the area will be back in school. That doesn’t worry me too much other than having to spend a bunch of money on school uniforms and supplies this month.

The upside to this is that if we can still get away for a short vacation, the beaches won’t be near as crowded yet there are still two months left of great beach weather at all the Gulf of Mexico beaches.

I checked online for a condo rental in Destin or anywhere along the Florida panhandle and found a great site, Rentalo.com to help book a condo. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the listings they have for Destin condos and I think we can find the perfect spot tonight and make our plans.

This same site handles condo rentals for all over the U.S., so I checked out what they have listed for Kissimmee vacation villas because we want to go back to Disneyworld for Thanksgiving and visit the grandparents in New Port Richey.

With air travel costs going up every week, we should probably book our spring break trip, too. So I checked the condo listings for Cancun and compared those with villas Puerto Vallarta deals and as long as we can get the new passports for the kids, we’ll have all our travel booked in some great spots for really great prices.